Rabbi Gedalyeh Engel, surrounded by posters from the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Conference in this 2006 photo, couldn't take no for an answer when it came to fighting for human rights.

In a world that won't stop finding new ways to dole out pain and injustice, Rabbi Gedalyah Engel was never without a cause.

And once he latched onto a case of repression to solve, Engel couldn't let go until he believed he'd made a life in a far off place somehow better, somehow more free.

Engel had a way of making a Midwestern community feel for a refusnik in Russia or a political prisoner in China.

But as he plied congressmen and recruited the press and his neighbors to the task, he made sure everyone around him understood that his mission always carried a bigger message: Men and women deserved to be treated decently, deserved to have their own voice and deserved lives that were free.

Engel, the former director of Hillel at Purdue University, was the best sort of pest when it came to issues of human rights. It was nearly impossible to tell him no - or at least to get him to accept anything less than a promise to help in his goals.

He guided the Greater Lafayette Holocaust Remembrance Conference each spring for decades. The conference stayed true to its name every year, honoring those who died and those who survived the atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps. But Engel made sure other forms of hate or oppression or marginalization were addressed, whether it was Rwanda or racism in America.

We felt Engel's presence often in the J&C newsroom. He would make his case, his briefcase spilling over with newspaper articles from around the world about assorted atrocities or blatant cases of people smothered into submission.

As he'd gather his clippings and ready to leave, he'd invariably depart with empowering words of encouragement: "You're doing good work. You know that, right?"

Engel died last week at age 93 in Phoenix, where he lived the past two years.

He did good work. We believe he knew that, too. That's why he never quit pushing when justice and fair play were in the balance.

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Editorial: On human rights, Rabbi Engel never quit

Our take: Rabbi Gedalyah Engel was the right kind of pest when it came to human rights. Greater Lafayette will miss him dearly.